Modern initiatives go awry in Kannur jail

KOZHIKODE: Many of the technology-driven  reforms  implemented in the Kannur central prison have gone awry.  Neither the government nor  the jail officials have evinced interest to revive the initiatives.    Following the controversy over  the whisking of political prisoners in 2009, a flash inspection was held and more than 100 mobile phones and chargers were found from prisoners. During the  visit of a media team to the jail then, a prisoner threw his diary to a scribe, which gave a shocking account of what was going on inside the prison.  

The diary revealed that it was utter chaos  with political prisoners ruling the roost and the authorities at their mercy.  Contraband was brought into the prison with the knowledge of officials.  Soon,  mobile jammers were installed to prevent the use  of phones. But within a few days,  jammers became defunct as salt was filled in it. “Then we decided to go for KELTRON-made high-capacity jammer. But it had  to be dropped as the neighbouring people complained of range problems when they made calls,” said former Kannur jail superintendent. At present, there is no mobile jammer in the jail.  Similarly, a video conference facility was installed to do away with the practice of bringing prisoners to courts. That too had a short life as it became defunct due to less bandwidth.

“Another problem with video conferencing is that the same facility has to be installed in the courts also. Barring the district court at Thalassery, there is no such facility in any other  courts,” says  jail superintendent  A. Ashok Kumar. Currently, there are 1,200 prisoners in the jail, including remand prisoners and 135 staff for them. “The staff- prisoner ratio  is 1:6. We are short of 26 men now, as 20 have gone for training,” he added.